I've voted in every general election since I've been eligible to vote, and that counts the mid-terms and primaries. I won't say how far that goes back, except to say that I was part of the prized swing-vote demographic to whom was once directed that most noble and high-minded of political arguments, "Where's the beef?" -- ask your parents.

And, yes, I'll be there Tuesday in my voting booth, my hand hovering dangerously over Roseanne Barr's name on the ballot.

You think that someone on a streak like mine would never consider entertaining the question of why bother voting, but ...

Why bother voting?

One of the great pieties of American political culture is the value of the vote. None of the other rights we enjoy as a liberal democracy make much sense without the right to vote. Generations of women, African-Americans and other minorities, and underclass people never got to exercise that right.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that voting is effective in choosing the leaders we want.

George Carlin -- one of the most successful stand-up comics in the history of humankind, we should note -- never wasted an opportunity to lambaste the practice of voting and boast of his principled non-participation in what he believed was a sham. And who doesn't know someone who has adopted a Carlinian stance when it comes to voting?

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I mean, the man has a point.

On the presidential level, for instance, the Electoral College has essentially assigned a small number of arbitrary swing states the privilege of electing a president. This year, you could argue that the people of Ohio are going to decide who will sit in the White House. Nate Silver's influential blog Five Thirty Eight has emerged as the most effective barometer of forecasting election results -- Silver accurately called 49 out of 50 states in 2008. Do you know what Silver's probability rating is for President Obama winning California? It's 100 percent!

The probability that you will successfully make it through your day tomorrow without being killed in a tragic accident involving a stale bagel is not even 100 percent.

So, given that an Obama victory in California is as certain as Tuesday following Monday, how can anyone keep a straight face while giving that "you're throwing away your vote" argument to someone who chooses a third-party candidate? Apparently, we're free to go with Roseanne, or write in Sergio Romo, for all the difference it will make.

And even if you did live in a swing state, the likelihood that your vote would be decisive in selecting a president is remote in the extreme. Heck, there was essentially a statistical tie in Florida in 2000 and there wasn't even a recount. The Supreme Court stopped it. Antonin Scalia's vote counted, but yours? Not so much.

It turns out we all have an upside-down attitude about voting. Ask just anybody on the street today about their preference for president and you're likely to get a spiel. People will declaim like a Southern lawyer about the presidential race, usually about how the other guy is a fraud and a liar, though we know deep down the presidential campaign, at least for us non-Ohioans, is little more than theater.

Now ask that same person about the local school board race, or the water board, or the city council. Most folks will shrug and say only that they've seen the yard signs. And, of course, it's in those races that your vote actually has some muscle. In a healthier democracy, people would get all pumped up about the school board and would have only the vaguest idea of who was running for president.

So, those of us who are aware of the mathematical absurdity of voting have to come up with some other justification for it. Some might say that if you don't vote, you can't complain about political matters. But technically, that's just not true.

Have you ever met someone who said, "Well, I didn't vote last time, so I'm going to spare you my political opinions"? Me neither.

Voting is a civic duty, sure. But so's serving on a jury and there are untold millions who vote every election but who'll still do anything short of swallowing bleach to get out of jury duty.

So, again, why bother voting?

For me, there's a good-angel answer and a bad-angel answer to that question. The positive answer is that voting allows you to participate in a grand and dramatic public ritual, not unlike cheering at a ballgame, or applauding at a great concert. And even though it is essentially a private act, there is an intoxicating sense of belonging that comes with voting.

But the bad angel on my other shoulder suggests that people are drawn to voting with an image in their minds. That image isn't necessarily of one of the candidates, but of someone they know -- a smug brother-in-law, an angry cousin, a loudmouth co-worker.

And they are motivated by the urge to cancel out the vote of that other person with their own. There is a sense of sacrifice in that idea, mixed with a generous dollop of malevolent glee. And that's quite satisfying too.

And that's why I'll continue my streak, even though I know it will almost certainly not count for anything meaningful at least at the presidential level, and that it gives me no more right to do or say anything than a non-voter has.

I do it for selfish reasons, and you probably do too -- for that thrill of belonging and for the satisfaction of putting political passions in their place.

So vote on Tuesday. Do it for your country, for yourself and to take that smug brother-in-law down a peg or two. I'm sure he has it coming.